Behringer Mixer, DI boxes, and Snakes

[geezer]

I just recently purchased a refurbished Behringer Eurodesk SL2442FX-PRO to run sound for a local band. It was about all I could afford. I have not received it yet so I was wondering if anyone has used it or other Behringer mixers, and had any feed back on them.

Also, people have told me that I should have DI boxes for every instrument. Because I am on kind of a tight budget, I was wondering how necessary are they?

I also need to buy a snake. I need 16 inputs with 4 quarter inch returns. I was wondering if any suggestions, or knew any that I should definitely stay away from. I'm trying to avoid going much over $300, but if i really need to I suppose I can. I was looking at Rapco, but i don't have my heart set on it.

Thank you so much for your Help.

[Bucky]

well if your bringing the instrument right into the board then yes you do need a DI box

[soundlight]

Don't trust the mute buttons on that mixer. If you have to kill something, take the fader all the way down and mute it. Just using the mute on the Behringer SL series boards has been known to pass a signal.

Rapco should do you for an entry-level snake, but also look at Pro Co.

[soundlight]

You can get Whirlwind IMP2 DI boxes for about $30/ea. on ebay. Check out this auction and similar ones. Nice little unit for your budget level.

[BillESC]

I'd suggest Tapco DI boxes as they are quite inexpensive yet well made.

Whirlwind offers a 16/4 imported snake right around your budget.

[avkid]

eBay is the poor sound guy's friend.

The link was huge,
http://tinyurl.com/o572j

Audiopile has many different snakes that seem to have a good reputation:
http://www.audiopile.net/products/St...4_cutsheet.asp

[stantonsound]

DI boxes. These are needed for any instrument that gives you a high impedance or unbalanced signal (usually via a 1/4" plug) and allows you to run it to the board via a low impedance xlr cable. Typically, this is just bass guitar rigs and keyboards. Most bass rigs have these built in, or just stick a mic in front of the cabinet on stage.

Guitars, horns, etc... are almost always mic'd (you put a microphone in front of the instrument or amp on the stage).

Typically, you would never need more than 3 DI's (unless there are 5 keyboards or something really messed up).

The Behringer boards are really not that bad. The biggest problem with them is that they are prone to breaking and weird things happening. I had a small 8 channel that I used to use for little events when I first started and had a problem with bleedover, where the signal from one channel would bleed into the channel next to it. I could not put a loud signal next to a quiet signal on the board, or it would bleed over. If you get a good board, you should be pretty happy with it.

As far as snakes, I have found that mine get damaged and need to be replaced no matter how expensive it is at about the same time. Each lasts me about 1 to 1 1/2 years at the most, even if I buy a $1000 snake. Things happen like it gets cut, some union jerk runs over it with a fork lift, etc.. I now buy mine from http://www.siglermusic.com . They are really pretty good for the price, and I have three of them right now and would compare them in quality to Horizon (which is far better than Rapco). (They even sell knock-offs of countryman lav mic's and are GREAT!)

[geezer]

Thanks tom for the the website. I'm looking at this snake here- http://cgi.ebay.com/OSP-16-x-4-CHANN...QQcmdZViewItem

Has anyone one else used these before? Tom, How long have you used these snakes for? They look like pretty good quality, but I'd like to know how the stand against use and time.

[geezer]

I have another question for you guys. Why should I use a DI box instead of running a guitar into the line jack on the mixer? Would this have problems? Doing all of this is kind of a learning experience for me so I'm sorry if this is a really stupid question.

Thanks for your help.

[soundlight]

The output of the guitar is not line level. It is, in fact, way, way off from line level. So, you either have to run it through a DI box, or run it through the amplifier and then run the aux out of the amp to the DI box.